Goodall’s interest in learning about animals and visiting Africa continued to grow as she grew up. In 1956, Goodall received an invitation from a close friend named Marie-Claud Mange to visit Kenya, where she then worked very hard to earn enough money to go on the trip by juggling jobs such as being a waitress and a secretary. On the trip, she was advised to meet Dr. Louis Leakey, a famous archaeologist who studied human natural history. Goodall was hired by Leakey to help him with one of his projects in Kenya, during which she managed to impress him with her knowledge of Africa and its wildlife. Eventually, Goodall was hired as his assistant. She travelled with Leakey and his wife, archaeologist Mary Leakey, to Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania on a fossil-hunting expedition. While Goodall was offered the opportunity to learn more about fossils and become a paleontologist, her childhood dream of studying animals was as strong as ever. After seeing how hard she worked, Leakey decided to let Goodall study Chimpanzees in what is now known as the Gombe National Park in  Tanzania. While the British authorities were reluctant to let a young woman live among wild animals in Africa initially, they relented when Goodall’s mother, Vanne, volunteered to accompany her for the first three months.

Apart from Jane Goodall, Louis Leakey also chose Dian Fossey and Birutė Galdikas to study primates in their natural environments, which he saw as the key to understanding human evolution. Jane Goodall studied Chimpanzees, Dian Fossey studied Gorillas, and Birutė Galdikas studied Orangutans. The trio was named the Trimates, also known as Leakey’s Angels.